Girl’s Petal Skirt Tutorial

1) Get some fabric. To get the right size piece, first measure around the girl’s waist (plus or minus a few inches, no need to be exact) double that and you have the width. The get her waist to just below mid-calf measurement, you have your height!

I have 44″ by 20″ for a very tall 7-year-old.

2) Making the petals. First, fold over the bottom on the fabric about 6 inches, so you have a strip of the back of the fabric at the bottom.

Then you’ll need to do some math! Get the width of your fabric, and find out how many whole sixes can fit in it. I had 44 inches, so There are seven sixes, which means seven petals with a one inch seam allowance at each end.

Now, make a pencil mark about two inches up and every six inches. Don’t forget your seam allowance!

3) Keep making the petals. Now get your round thing. I used a bowl, but a salad plate or something similar also works. Make sure your round thing has at least a six-inch diameter. 6 to 7 inches works best, otherwise your petals are very short and fat.

Put the round thing on your fabric, it should be touching the 6 inch marks on either side of it.

Trace around the bottom of the round thing up to the six inch marks.

Repeat for all your petals!

4) Pin and sew around all the petals.

5) Serge or zig-zag the folded up edge.

6) Now trim around all the petals. Clip as close as you can to where the petals meet, be careful!

7) Turn your petals the right way out and iron them.

8) Now top stitch around the edge of each petal.

9) Sew up from the point where the petals meet to the top of the fold. This is to keep the folded fabric from flopping down, plus, it makes secret pockets for secret notes.

10) Serge/zig-zag each end and sew up the sides just like a normal skirt using whatever seam allowance you gave yourself. I like to iron the seam open, but you don’t have to. Then serge/zig-zag the top

11) Fold the top over to make the elastic casing, sew, but don’t forget to leave an opening to insert elastic!

12) Put in the elastic! Then sew the ends together and sew closed the gap in your casing. I’m using 1 1/2 inch elastic, but you could go smaller if you wanted to.